"When Prospects Give You The "Silent Treatment"
If you happen to encounter a prospect who gives you the silent treatment, this blog post will provide some skillful advice for handling the situation. Frankly, I’m not sure how else to keep your sales in check.
Some of these tips are meant for cold calling, but they can also be applied to any sales or marketing process, whether in-person or one-on-one.
Whether or not you get actual "silent treatment," be prepared to field a barrage of silence. It will usually come in waves and with subtle variations.
With the prospect doing the silent treatment:
Follow-up several times in a row. In most cases, it's actually better to keep following up for one more day than one more week. If people are really rude, you may want to go back to a previous tactic, such as humor or rapport building. Even when the prospect is answering your calls and emails, this doesn't count as "silent treatment." What's appropriate here is different than what is appropriate if there's no communication at all.
Ask people to speak up. Some prospects will say "yeah, yeah, yeah" when you ask them to speak up. Others will actually respond, but they'll still keep their eyes glued on the floor and pretend that they can't hear you at all. Your persistence will usually get them to answer, but they may not feel comfortable expressing themselves any further.
Calling back later in the day or week again. The problem with this technique is that it's unlikely that the person who ignored your first call wanted to hear from you again just then anyway. Call-back at a different time might make someone more willing to speak with you or may scare them off entirely if they realize that you are persistent and aren't going away.
Offering up the prospect's name. If a person ignores you, but you can get their contact information from a backchannel source, then you can often get yourself to the point where you're ready to call them. Getting their email or phone number is yet another step that many salespeople overlook.
If you're using LeadsPages, then we've got a great tip for getting prospects' names and contact information with our Sales Cloud action:
1/2) Use [Google Forms] as your communication with prospects. You'll have access to data that will help make this interaction an effortless process (like the prospect's name and profession). You can even ask prospects to rate you on a scale from 1-10 by using a [LeadPages] form!
2/2) Get their real phone number (you can do this by using our Sales Cloud action which connects automatically with Google Sheets). Once you have their phone number, you can use it to follow up by verbally asking them to speak up. If they won't talk on the phone, you can use it as an opportunity to schedule another face-to-face meeting.
Click here to learn more about this cool trick.
Getting the silent treatment is actually very common in cold calling. Frankly, most people just hate cold calling and answering their phones. The trick for you is to get the prospect to speak and have a conversation. If you're able to get them talking, then the job of converting them into a customer becomes much easier.
Here's an email that I sent to someone who gave me the silent treatment after I cold called him:
I just got off the phone with [Mrs. Prospect]. After three rings, she picked up and said "hello." There was no sound on her side of the conversation at all. She said "hello" again, but didn't say anything else. It was clear that she wasn't in a good mood because she wasn't too happy about talking on the phone today (and I didn't actually catch her in a good mood).
I took a shot in the dark, and I said "hi, Mrs. Prospect." There was the sound of the phone getting placed down on a table. Then she said "yes?" I was surprised that she actually replied.
I then asked her if she was busy at all or if I could call her later (at an appropriate time). She responded by saying "no." After about three seconds of silence, I told her that it sounded like she was trying to be as quiet as possible (which is exactly what she was doing). She laughed and tried to get me off the phone by saying that it wasn't going to be possible for us to talk business today.
Mrs. Prospect asked me to email her, but I didn't have her email. She gave me her first name though, so I said that I would call her again. Then she said "ok" and we hung up the phone.
I didn't end up getting Mrs. Prospect as a customer (we were already doing work for her husband), but this was a very positive interaction because she was able to get to know me better (more about our company). It also demonstrated my persistence because of the number of times that I called and emailed her over a one month period (even though she gave us the cold shoulder).
I've talked to a lot of other salespeople, and they told me that they were afraid to pick up the phone and call again. They were worried that they might offend the prospect or worse, just annoy them.
I think it's important for you to ask prospects if they are busy on the phone. This is a perfect way to get them off the hook by making them tell you that they are busy. If you're willing to follow up with an email, then this can be your way of getting in touch with them without feeling like you're bothering them on the phone again.
The point is that Mrs. Prospect wasn't too happy about talking on the phone that day. However, it didn't have anything to do with her not wanting to talk to a stranger. It was more than likely that she had something going on that day that would've prevented her from talking on the phone. There may have been a back-up voicemail in place, or maybe she had a really important meeting and didn't want to be interrupted. The point is, there are many reasons why someone will get off the phone when you call them on the phone.
Mrs. Prospect didn't give me her email address because she was busy (or busy doing something else), and it's not like I was going to insist that she give me one.
Conclusion
Cold calling is an often-overlooked sales strategy that should be practiced and utilized more often. Cold calls can be scary, but there are plenty of ways to make it less so.
Check out a free step-by-step Cold Calling Tutorial .
Click here to Download a Free Ebook on Cold Calls .
Click here to Download a Free Ebook on Follow-Up.
Click here to Download what's become the most comprehensive cold calling cheat sheet you'll ever see.